Thursday, July 23, 2015

Want a career in marketing? Plump for digital marketing, advise Prasun Chaudhuri and

Avijit Chatterjee

You must have seen those pop up ads (“Big Chillout Sales”, “Rocking
Deals”, “How to Make Money Driving” and so on) on your smartphone
screen. Ever wondered who is responsible for the ads? And who posts
those notices about study centres in your Gmail inbox, Facebook page or
on Twitter just after you’ve sought some career advice via the email?
This is the work of digital marketing professionals — a new breed of
people who promote products or brands on one or more forms of the
electronic media.

Rimjhim Ray — who co-founded Unmarketeer, an integrated creative and
digital marketing company in Mumbai — is a primary example of a digital
marketer. Her work is to create the most appropriate promotional
campaign for new media channels, namely, the social media and mobile
phones. “I can measure how these campaigns are being viewed, and
what content works and doesn’t work — typically in real time,” she says.

How does Ray find out what might interest one of India’s 600 million
users of smartphones, tablets, notebooks or personal computers (PC)? “We
listen to what people are saying,” she says.

It is relatively easy to spot what people are talking about in the
digital world, what they love or hate, as you learn about them from
their public profiles. So you can find out what a teenage audience likes
or where a 25-year-old upwardly mobile woman is going for a holiday,
all from Internet queries or searches.

Analysts source the information and pass it to creative teams that
design campaigns based on what's trending. “You use videos, interactive
banners, social media posts, mobile phone games and animations to hook
the audience. There’s an immense variety here,” Ray says.

The variety attracts young people to the field. “If you look at the
placement records of top tech and B-schools you’ll find that youngsters
look for novelty, challenges and the excitement of creating a new world
order,” says Prapti Banerjee, a director at Blippar India, a global
marketing and advertising agency.

The burgeoning field covers a range of activities — marketing in the
social media, search engine optimization, web and mobile applications,
data mining and so on. As Ramabhadran AP, senior vice-president, Manipal
Global Education Services, puts it, “Every product is available online
today — from a toothbrush to a house. So a person can choose his or her
area of work from a wide variety of options.”

Digital marketing is exploding the world over, especially in the
developed world. “But only 19 per cent of Indians are active Internet
users — we haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg,” exclaims
Banerjee. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India
(IAMAI), an industry body, digital advertisement spending in India grew
by 30 per cent to Rs 2,750 crore in 2014 and is expected to grow
phenomenally in the next few years.

“The growth trajectory shows that this is gradually becoming the
mainstay of marketing,” says Nilotpal Chakravarti, associate
vice-president, IAMAI. Agrees Shivan Bhargava, group president (skills
and careers), NIIT. “These days no marketing strategy is complete
without digital marketing. Almost all companies use it to build their
brands and generate sales. The best thing about digital marketing is
that it is specifically targeted, easily traceable and cost effective
compared to television and print media ads,” he says.

The situation reminds experts of early 2000 when the IT industry was
at its peak. “A similar momentum exists today in this field,” says
Pradeep Chopra who heads Digital Vidya, a New Delhi-based digital
marketing training institute. “Every week we get calls from leading
agencies wishing to hire trained people.” Bhargava estimates that over
1.5 lakhs jobs will be created by 2016.

The online revolution happened so fast in India that there’s an acute
dearth of talent, feels Raghu Chaitanya, an assistant professor at
MICA, the Ahmedabad-based institute of strategic marketing and
communication. “We were the first in India to introduce specialisation
in digital communication management (DCM),” he says.

Although having a background in IT, which helps in the back-end of
the digital ecosystem, offers a slight advantage in the field, a
complete understanding of marketing fundamentals will help a
professional do well, he believes. MICA has been approached by a large
number of recruiters from the digital media — such as Google, Amazon and
Cognizant Technologies — in recent years.

At the managerial level, skills in both technology and marketing help
to integrate traditional campaigns with the digital world, says Anthony
Quigley, co-founder, Digital Marketing Institute, UK. “Marketing
through mobile phones is in crying need of appropriate professionals,”
he says.

To meet the rising demand one needs to groom the right talent to come
up with innovative ideas, says Sudeep Sen of Teamlease, the
Bangalore-based recruitment firm.

However, few good institutes exist to train people and one must be
wary of fly-by-night operators capitalising on the demand, warns
Ramabhadran of Manipal Education. “These institutes offer shallow
courses to dupe students,” he says. For all the hoopla, not all are
gung ho about digital marketing. Ramanujam Sridhar, head of Brand-comm,
the brand consulting company, believes that it is “one of the main cogs”
in the marketing of any brand, but not “all” about marketing or
communication.

Some also caution those wannabe digital marketers who believe the field is all glamour and fun.
It’s not just about a few posts here and there, stresses Vismaya Jain, a
student of MICA, who recently interned with a top company. “Multiple
analytical tools are involved, metrics to be benchmarked and ‘likes’ to
be measured. Extensive strategies are employed and plans are made weeks
in advance.”

Besides, entry level salaries are still lower than those offered in
similar roles in the traditional marketing domain. Yet the “huge
potential and scope for big things” in the near future draws Jain and
thousands of other youngsters towards this new profession.